Aibu to wonder when will I become an illegal immigrant?

[SchrodingersImmigrant]

🤦🤦🤦🤦
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55672194

EU citizens now have their status online with no physical proof given... It looks like accidental deletion isn't that hard to do.

Aibu to wonder when will I turn from Schrodingersimmigrant to IDontKnowHowButIAmIllegalImmigrantNow ?

Any fellow stealers of all jobs while also takers of all benefits here and having thoughts about this?

And in that case the standard MN response would be LTB

That's actually absolutely true😂

Yanbu. Anyone who ha been around here for longer than five minutes knows about government IT, their attitude to immigration, and incompetence

[quote onlychildandhamster]@SchrodingersImmigrant third country nationals should apply to update their cards to pre-settled status and settled status, esp if they want to travel. at least then your partner would have physical proof of his status.

visas-immigration.service.gov.uk/product/biometric-residence-permit-replacement-service?_ga=2.9880885.1408909759.1597665806-1939459641.1592321380[/quote]
Thank you for this! Why oh why I am learning this on MN of all the places. I received my settled status only a couple months ago, and now it seems that I need to go through ~70% of the paperwork again, and pay at least £185 for the privilege as there are only premium level appointments now.

Just be grateful they didn't confiscate the ham out of your sandwiches.

My husband is Italian and I don't trust the government one bit. We have started his application for citizenship.

@Viviennemary

Just be grateful they didn't confiscate the ham out of your sandwiches.

I would rather that than confiscating my peace😂 But I am on a diet so that might be influencing my decision😁

With respect, if you’re unwilling to gain citizenship, how is the U.K. really your adopted country?

With respect, people who think this normally have very limited experience of living and working abroad. I have lived for 23 years in a country where I am not a citizen, it is not a question of being "unwilling" to gain citizenship - it is often a question of bureaucracy and financial difficulties. I would be really upset if someone suggested that the country where I have lived, worked, paid taxes, volunteered for my community - without getting so much as a speeding ticket was not my adopted country.

For those that say why not just become a citizen. It's going to cost us £1400 to get my husband a passport and that's not including the hundreds he's already paid to get settled status. We're going to have to put it on our credit card. It's not a feasible option for a lot of people.

That is why I will be applying for a UK citizenship. I don't trust the authorities here to competently ensure that this doesn't happen.

I'm not an EU citizen (sob) but YANBU and I'm sorry for our government. Please take comfort that some of us will be doing everything we can to kick them out at the next available opportunity.

And the tests. The bloody tests... Honestly.

Our cost would be:
Lituk- 100
English - forgot how much, but just fot 1
Na application - 2660
Ceremony - 160
Solicitor because of the fucking CSI🤷🏻 - i don't even know. 1000?

Sadly though, even if labour came to power it's not going to change much considering Starmer has given up on renegotiating anything with the EU, including freedom of movement. That's gone for good...

For what its worth OP, I still think the costs are worth it. It's a lot but if you can manage to gain citizenship it'll save you potentially a lot of grief long term. You'd never have to deal with home office again, you could live elsewhere and return to the UK without starting from scratch etc. It would really formalize your relationship with the UK in a way that settled status can't really.
I personally was born in an EU country, got here 23 years ago (uni) and naturalized British. Now I'm finding it really does make a difference.

Yeah. It is truth. I am lucky that my native country allows dual citizenship.
We will go through it. We planned it for this year, until the goalpoasts changed again😐 So now I am either fucked for 4 further years or... I don't know 🤷🏻 Just don't.

@Raspberry681we would need to revoke our birth nationality to gain British passports.
This is actually a really big deal, we’d need a visa to visit family and would be time limited. We couldn’t say stay longer as a guarantee to nurse an elderly parent if the need arose. We couldn’t inherit their house under their law. We would need visas to travel to a country we sometimes travel to for work, and it would possibly cut that off. If the country joins the EU we may also lose a future right to travel and live in Europe freely.
It would also cost us thousands for all of us, paying both countries for multiple family members.
It’s easy to say you’d do it when you haven’t faced it as a huge monetary loss and division from family

I considered myself an immigrant the day I realised I was here for the long haul. That's when naturalising made sense to me. To make that permanent regardless of governments. It's about where you really put down roots and where your kids (if you have any) are most likely to settle. As an aside that's in my view what makes the difference between an expat and an immigrant.

Of course, that's an awful dilemma for those who can't keep their citizenship of birth...

You'd never have to deal with home office again, you could live elsewhere and return to the UK without starting from scratch etc. It would really formalize your relationship with the UK in a way that settled status can't really.
To be fair, citizenship rules can also be changed in the future, so it is not a cast iron guarantee.
Look at Ireland, for example. Even if you have naturalised as an Irish citizen, you are still risking losing it if you move abroad. Actually, you are required to pro-actively declare your intention to retain Irish Citizenship on the annual basis, and then I think it still is based on the goodwill / discretion of the immigration services.
Want a bet that Britain will move in the same direction?

Do they make a distinction between acquired citizenship and citizenship from birth? Or is everyone subject to the same rules?

Can I just say I am English & I like immigrants, I don't want you to leave & like many of my friends & family I didn't want to leave the EU.

@Songsofexperience

Do they make a distinction between acquired citizenship and citizenship from birth? Or is everyone subject to the same rules?

Irish do, acquired citizenship there is now effectively a softer version of ILR. British do in some niche cases. For example, I think an adoptive parent cannot pass on the British nationality to adopted children, if the parent's nationality was through naturalisation - but happy to be corrected on this.

To be fair, citizenship rules can also be changed in the future, so it is not a cast iron guarantee.

Nothing ever is. There are all sorts of abusive regimes out there. Point is, citizenship is currently still the best guarantee for peace of mind. Should Britain ever turn into a fascist hell hole then we'd all be screwed anyway, Brit or not.

@Songsofexperience
Not necessarily fascist, see my Irish example above - hardly a fascist dictatorship, isn't it.

I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with another scandal involving all this. It's no wonder there is such a backlog now of people - both EU and non-EU.

Ceremony fees are now part of the application fee so shouldn't be extra on top (it would probably help if the fee structures didn't change all the time, but they've already openly admitting the service is running for profit).

I'm currently in the backlog for citizenship ceremonies - just got a call earlier today that they've all my paperwork for it, but things are suspended (thankfully the previous 3 month deadline has been extended too) but it'll likely be another 3-4 weeks. For me, the main issue was more all the proof. It was a big issue when BRPs came in for non-EU residents - I had to prove 15 years of residency, back to when I got indefinite leave to remain (which was when I was meant to be done with this shit being required). It was really hard for many who had arrived on spousal or other family visas and had time not working either through caring responsibilities or ill health as the paperwork allowed can be quite strict. Some lost their ability to work or access services - it's hard to feel your place is home when they can pull that out from under you at any moment because they want to prove they're hard on immigrants (for me, my family is my home - that we're in the UK doesn't make me feel more at home here much of the time). They've been slightly kinder to EU citizens now getting shove into this mess not having to prove the whole time period, but it's not easy for many people - especially with the push to go paperless.

I had to get through that to take the Life in the UK test before I could then apply for citizenship.

And the 'references' section - like you're already making me agree to a background checks, how are two random people, one who fits the out of date professional criteria, filling in a piece of paper with my picture stuck to it in any way proving my good character. No one makes you do that for a DBS check. That and the "private partners" charging £60+ to scan documents, but really it's library staff with little training using the company's scanners and finger scan equipment that's been bodged in.

I can see why people find going for citizenship off-putting even if your other citizenships don't cause an issue for it, it's seems to be both intentionally designed that way with many unintentional consequences as most of the changes seem to focus on new arrivals with little thought for those who've been here a while.

I think the ceremony is free just because of covid because it6 written everywhere as a separate fee?

Absolutely right about constant changes!